Archive for March, 2010
Still Life Flower from my previous studio
17th July 2006 Tony Blair’s Press Secretary Alistair Campbell is chased down the street by a Saddam Hussein lookalike near his home in north London. It was alleged that Campbell had a hand in altering government reports to justify going to war with Iraq. “Please remain. You furnish the pictures, and I’ll furnish the war.” When the invasion began, Hearst sailed directly to Cuba as a war correspondent, providing sober and accurate accounts of the fighting. Creelman later praised the work of the reporters for exposing the horrors of Spanish misrule, arguing, “no true history of the war . . . can be written without an acknowledgment that whatever of justice and freedom and progress was accomplished by the Spanish-American war was due to the enterprise and tenacity of yellow journalists, many of whom lie in unremembered graves.” William Randolph Hearst Not unlike the best of modern journalism until recently…
the media plays a central role in the development of unreasonable fear..I am not saying the media are doing this deliberately. I think what’s fundamentally at work is human nature….” Dan Gardener
A video piece I did with VC2 producer Daniel Florêncio for Current TV where we spent an evening driving around Central London as we looked for celebs and came across Prince William at Boujis.
Some interesting programs and radio debates on privacy and injunctions at the moment. The Death of Kiss and Tell, Panorama examines the battle lines being drawn between those pushing for laws to boost a person’s right to privacy and those in the media fighting to tell the truth. Celebrities on Privacy and the Press and the excellent Radio 4 Now Law in Action piece Clive Coleman looks at super-injunctions and what the recent John Terry case says about the development and limitations of privacy law. As a “Situationist Paparazzo” and sometime “Expert Witness” I think I have seen and know more than I ever wished to.
“If people bring so much courage to this world the world has to kill them to break them, so of course it kills them. The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good, and the very gentle, and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too, but there will be no special hurry.” Ernest Hemingway
An article, “This is London” I did for Don’t Tell It magazine…Consumerism, cult of celebrity and the real economy. Carter Ruck, Shillings and Co and our vain glorious politicised culture are destroying this economy, one of the few industries we have left in this country, that is leading to a climate of censorship that will make North Korea proud. When the devil needs a lawyer Carter Ruck is his first port of call with their super injunctions and as John Milton said no phrase could be more apt, “Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven.” I celebrate the excesses of London’s glamour girls, they draw the high rolling clientele to the hip bars and clubs, their bodies sell magazines and their indiscretions keep tabloids in print, and yet the contribution that London’s glamour girls make to the UK economy goes largely unrecognised. I salute them, especially Cassie Sumner, Prince Harry’s friend who was voted sexiest woman in Britain by News of the World readers.
Glamour model Cassie Sumner and her friend Charlie mess around in the street after a night out in London, June 2005.
30th April 2004 Prive. Cassie Sumner (who made headlines as Prince Harry’s topless call girl love interest) enjoys a night out with a blonde girlfriend.
“There is an ancient tribal proverb I once heard in India. It says that before we can see properly we must first shed our tears to clear the way.”
